Pete Townshend Sets Release Date for ‘Who I Am’ Autobiography

After more than a decade in development, it sounds like Pete Townshend is finally ready to release his long-discussed memoir. In fact, it’ll be on bookstore shelves in time for Christmas.

Titled ‘Who I Am’ (a departure from the working title of ‘Who He?’), Townshend’s memoir is described by his publisher, HarperCollins, as “one of the most eagerly awaited autobiographies of recent times,” in which “this icon tells about his incredible life and elaborates on the turbulences of time spent as one of the world’s most respected musicians – being in one of rock’s greatest ever bands, and wanting to give it all up.”

For his part, Townshend promises he’ll “talk about the first moment that I thought about a song, what was going through my head.” But as WXRT notes, HarperCollins is being careful to tease the additional inclusion of “grittier tales of sex, drugs and, of course, rock ‘n’ roll.”

The Who frontman’s work on the book was made public through an unfortunate turn of events when, in 2003, the British police brought him in for viewing child pornography; he claimed he’d been doing it for research on what he then called his “childhood autobiography,” alleging sexual abuse at the hands of his grandmother and saying, “Some of the things I have seen on the net have informed my book which I hope will be published later this year.”

“What I’ve never really done is just my story from my point of view,” Townshend explains in the trailer for ‘Who I Am,’ embedded below. The book, now scheduled for an Oct. 8 release, is available for pre-order from Amazon, where it’s described as “a work of literature that stands as a primary source for popular music’s greatest epoch.”

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